Unpublished Tolkien Letter for sale!

[Lalwendë]

I have to wonder what any of us would do if we found a Tolkien letter languishing in the back of an old copy of the Oxford Yellow Pages or somesuch? Would we keep it to ourselves or sell it on?

I like to think I'd keep it, but then I'd be afraid of it getting lost or stolen. If I had one and sold it though, I would first make the content available publicly. Something about intellectual material being squirrelled away by wealthy collectors and universities doesn't sit well with me, and I'd like to make it freely available. But is it the exclusivity that makes such a letter more valuable or the artefact itself?

If I had a personal letter from Tolkien, then I think it would be another matter as I'd want to keep that as long as I could. I've a couple of personally signed books/photos (as opposed to buying one that has 'just' got an autograph in it) and I don't think I'd sell those to be honest. I have a Benjamin Zephaniah signed book from when I did some poetry work with him and an Alan Lee signed book from last year's Tolkien event, and those things have an intrinsic value to me for their memories.

Originally Posted by Esty

Mind you, there may be letters out there, waiting to be discovered, but is this actually one of them? We've seen "Hitler's diary" and other documents "discovered", only to be exposed as forgeries. How reliable is this source? And even if it is trustworthy, it can be deceived by a dishonest person...

There must be a lot more Tolkien letters out there somewhere as he was a very keen letter writer, and of course he was a from a different era in which letter writing was a very commonplace thing to do. I wonder if say JK Rowling writes as many letters or if she has the time with publishers breathing down her neck for the latest book? Or if modern writers just send e-mails these days? It doesn;t have the same ring to it, an e-mail.

How cruel would it be to forge Tolkien's diaries?!

[HerenIstarion]

M-m, strange thought just occurred to me, following lal's post above... what happens inext - will e-mails count as letters, and will they have any monetary value? I do have some from David Brin (true, what that correspondence consists of is mainly [polite] quarreling, but still...). Suppose Mr. Brin grows on to become truly good writer, gets the Nobel Prize ... prospective income, or what?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

M-m, strange thought just occurred to me, following lal's post above... what happens inext - will e-mails count as letters, and will they have any monetary value? I do have some from David Brin (true, what that correspondence consists of is mainly [polite] quarreling, but still...). Suppose Mr. Brin grows on to become truly good writer, gets the Nobel Prize ... prospective income, or what?

I'd say with an e-mail its the intellectual material, i.e. the content which is valuable. Whereas with a letter there is a sense that 'the great man' (for example, not discounting Ms Austen's letters ) actually held and crafted the item.

I suppose that with letters there is less chance of forgery too, although as has already been said, modern techniques make this more and more likely! This is where provenance would come in as of vital importance, which I beleive is the case with 'signed' books.

[Encaitare]

25 grand, huh? I suppose I don't really need to go to college for all four years...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

How cruel would it be to forge Tolkien's diaries?!

Oh dearie me! I regularly read "Captain Picard's Blog" on Blogger. I wonder if some enterprising Tolkien fan might be tempted to blog the secret diary of Tollers. It would be straight, of course, not a spoof.

[Mithalwen]

Interesting hoax theory .. considering that possibility, I do wonder about Tolkien who seems to have been a technophobe, using the dynamo metaphor. Seems a bit Saruman-ish for him........

[MatthewM]

A lot of things will surprise you about the man behind the magic. I still get surprised at some things he has said. Sometimes it sounds so uninvolved that you actually wonder how you are so engrossed in his tale!